Lia sat on a rock and started crying. Others stared blindly into space, while more still just walked away. All of them broken. All of them defeated.
Because of her.
A dark voice inside her whispered,Do them all a favor and fall on your own sword.
Except to do so would accomplishnothing.It was only the coward’s way out of an awful solution, and if she was going to die, it might as well be forsomething.
“Don’t let him give up just yet,” she said to Lara, and then broke into a run, heading down to Midwatch’s cove where most of the violence had taken place. Keeping low, she searched until she found a Harendellian soldier who’d been killed in the fray. She swiftly donned his clothes and then hid his corpse beneath some brush, and with her hair tucked up beneath his hat and a bit of blood smeared across her face, she joined the ranks of soldiers being ferried in longboats back to the ship.
“You hurt, lad?” one of the other soldiers asked, gesturing to the bloodstains on her uniform.
“Nothing serious.” She lowered her pitch, mimicking their accent. “It’s mostly Amaridian blood.”
Several of the men clapped her on the shoulder, and then the longboat was pulling alongside the ship. Ahnna climbed up the ladder, saluting the officer waiting at the top, and then headed belowdecks. She knew ships and knew them well, and ensuring she walked with purpose, Ahnna made it to the hold. There, she hid behind empty water barrels, and settled in for an uncomfortable journey north.
Where are you?Her heart screamed the question, desperate to know if James was safe. Desperate to know that there was a chance that they would be reunited.
Ahnna shoved away the thought. Her people were alive, and where there was life, there was hope. This time, she wouldn’t disappoint them.
81
James
When James came to, itwas to find himself gagged and bound in a horse’s stall. He fought and struggled, trying to free himself, but to no avail. His head throbbed and blood dripped down his cheek, but the question of why Georgie hadn’t just killed him was answered as two sets of footsteps approached.
Georgie pulled open the stall door and checked James’s bindings, then stepped out of the way to reveal a shadowed figure. Alexandra removed her hood, looking James up and down like a rat who’d crawled over her shoe.
“You’ve proven to be a tough man to kill.”
He couldn’t speak around the gag, so James sufficed with giving her a murderous glare.
Alexandra gave a world-weary sigh. “This would all be going so much smoother if Katarina had put you down as she was supposed to, but fear caused her to make mistakes. She should have trusted me to do right by her, because then our plans would still be going smoothly. Instead, you are alive, Ronan knows too much, William has involved himself, and I have been forced to pivot to a new strategy. Katarina’s lack of nerve is going to cost her her life, because if the winds were good, Archie will already have slit her throat.”
Through the throbbing pain in his skull, James understood thatthe silence of the Sky Palace after Lestara’s return had been to keep Katarina’s spies in the dark as Alexandra moved against the queen of Amarid.
“Just because Katarina is dead doesn’t mean we are clear of this, Alex. We don’t have long until Ronan comes demanding vengeance.” Georgie shifted restlessly, looking over his shoulder to ensure the stable remained empty. “Ronan knows too much.”
Alexandra didn’t respond, only gave James a knowing smile. “It was a good attempt with Lestara, Jamie. She had every reason to ally with you, but she is fortunately not stupid enough to bite the hand that feeds.”
Georgie’s hand rested on his sword, and he twitched at every noise in the stable. “We need to get rid of him, Alex. I’ll slit his throat and dump him in the river.”
“Tempting, but James’s death won’t solve the problem of Ronan. Nothing will fully solve the problem of Ronan, because thanks to Katarina, he knows all our crimes. It isn’t knowledge that can be erased, and if we start with assassinations, it will only serve as proof of our guilt.” Alexandra pursed her lips, and her scar pulled up one side of her mouth into a sneer. “If you’d played your cards right, you might have come out on top, Jamie. Dubious heritage aside, the people have always liked you. So honorable and stalwart. The perfect handsome prince. But you rushed into things, putting your faith in risky sources and not thinking things through. It’s not like you to be impatient and impulsive, so that means something made you desperate. Desperate enough to riskeverything.”
Alexandra saw everything. Always had. But James suspected that her genius and calculating logic came at the cost of what made a person human. It was a monster that stood before him.
“Ahnna Kertell is no more dead than you are, is she? Love has flourished in the garden of shared trauma and adversity, and you act on her behalf, despite it meaning betraying your family.” Her focus shifted toGeorge. “We’ll need to be on the lookout for Ahnna. She’s dangerous.”
“No one is getting into the Sky Palace.”
Alexandra was quiet for a long moment, head tilted as the wheels in her eyes turned. “The plot thickens, Georgie. If Ahnna is alive and safe, there is no reason for James to have taken such risks.” Her chuckle was cold and cruel. “I think there are survivors of Katarina’s schemes in Ithicana, and enough of them that it’s worthwhile to attempt wild measures in the hope of regaining sovereignty. Bodies were found, so some of the poison found root, but I think the Crimson Widow was tricked. Ithicana yet lives.”
She gave a soft laugh, swaying from side to side in dance, her pleasure palpable. “You aimed to get me to turn on Katarina. Aimed to push her into revealing all my truths. Such a shame the dead cannot speak.”
God help him, but James hated her. Yet his anger was drowned by fear for Ahnna, because now the monster knew that she was alive. Knew that Ithicana was alive.
“What are we going to do, Alex?” Georgie did not share Alexandra’s pleasure over the scheme, and beads of sweat ran down his face. “Ronan is going to reveal everything. We have to do something.”
“Of course. We’ll use Ronan’s own schemes against him. We have that forgery Cormac gave Keris, which we can use as proof the lot of them were attempting to incite a coup to take the throne for James. No one will believe any of their accusations after that is revealed, least of all William. Everything else we can pin on Katarina, given Archie should be in the process of executing her in William’s name. We will be applauded for bringing a mass murderer to justice, and once the dust settles, no one will argue when we formally annex Ithicana.”
